


Linear raeniL

by TheCrimsonJaguar



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Short Chapters, i had so much fun writing this, listen i just played ln2 and i'm full of creative juice, not sure what the current theory consensus is fyi, so i made a fic full of weird time bullshit prose, this may date horribly but it's too late now, timey-wimey bs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrimsonJaguar/pseuds/TheCrimsonJaguar
Summary: Fantasy will tell you that time is liquid, flowing, ever changeable.Reality will show you that time is linear.~~~Six chooses violence, Mono becomes the Thin Man, the Thin Man chooses violence.
Relationships: The Thin Man/Depression
Comments: 5
Kudos: 75





	1. Time May be Linear,

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy :)  
> (also I'm not joking the chapters are gonna be short until we get to the end. In where it'll be slightly less short.)

_ (Time may be linear, but it moves differently for different people.) _

_ (Time may be linear, but history repeats repeats repeats repeats repe-) _

_ (Time may be linear, but the path of a pendulum is as well.) _

_ (Time may be linear, Time may be linear, Time may be linear, Time may be linear,) _

_ ~~~ _

He sat on a chair in a room with no ceiling. He couldn't tell how long he had sat there. He couldn't tell if it had been years or months or days, and he'd come to accept that. 

Sometimes, he got up.

There wasn't much to do in the Signal Tower. He leaves the room, his room, his prison and home, and walks through corridors and stairwells and fleshy seas. There wasn't much to find, usually. Sometimes, that changed. 

This time, it was a jacket. Not like his jacket, which used to be too big for him and flowed out behind him like a cape. He still wore his jacket, but it was too small for him now, tight around the joints and falling to tatters. The new jacket is fresh and clean, and it did not flow out behind him when he puts it on.

But it fit, of course it fit, and something not himself is pleased to see him in it. He dropped his old jacket onto the ground, right where he found the new one. Giving it one last long, thoughtful look, he left.

The first doorway he went through goes right to his room, and he sat back down on his chair. 

And waits.

~~~

He was filled with anger when he saw her. So much anger. It boiled his insides, it made the ever constant haze of static in his mind recede like the tide only to come crashing back tenfold. 

He hated her. What she did to him, what he did to her, it was all so unfair. He looked down and his fingers. They were longer, thinner, but stronger too. She would not be allowed to live. Not for her sins. Not for her _betrayal._

He saw himself as well. Younger, smaller, kinder. This too filled him with rage. How foolish. How stupid. As he watched his past self make mistakes- so glaringly obvious to his now much older eye- it was maddening. Watching himself make mistakes was _maddening._

When his door opens, he stands. 

It was time he gave chase to the people who have haunted him for so long.

They would haunt him no longer.

~~~

**_Some things can't be changed._ **

**_Some things are meant to be changed._ **

**_Nothing can progress unless_ something _is changed._**


	2. A Doomed King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much for pacing myself asdfghgfddf  
> oh well the chapters are short guess it doesn't matter too much.

_ (a porcelain child tied to a doomed king) _

_ (two children struggle to survive) _

_ (you are not the chess master) _

_ (you are a fool) _

~~~

The Tower dragged on his soul. Dragged it, pulled it, warped it. Time had no meaning and the events of the past seemed like a fairy tale in his mind's eye. Everything seemed far away, sounds, sensations, thought. 

He was a dying mind in an aging body, and everything felt numb.

The tower he lived in was alive. Flesh and blood and eyes just underneath the surface. Sometimes he thought that there were teeth as well, deep down in the pulsing meat. Gnashing, chewing, crunching away at his withering sanity. 

It was a part of him as much as he was a part of it. He got up less, now. He just stayed put, the soul-deep weariness slowly dragging him further down.

~~~

He watched his past self and felt nothing but heartbreak. He pressed his hands to the glass of his metal cage, tracing the silhouettes of two lost children. His past self didn't deserve the life he was given. The tragedy that awaited the end of this story. 

Over and over again, his story was told. Over and over again, he died to become himself. Over and over again, he failed to see a way out.

Therefore, there _wasn't_ way out. He was trapped, they were trapped, a never ending cycle of pain and torment, betrayal and tragedy.

He stood from his seat, his legs creaking audibly. It was time for the familiar game of cat and mouse. And this time, like all the times before, he would be the mouse. 

~~~

**_The future is dependent on the variables and constants of the present and past._ **

**_If everything you change changes nothing, then everything you changed was unchangeable._ **

**_The boy wears your old face; under it, he wears your new one._ **


	3. Pawns and Constants

_ (the boy and the girl are not pawns) _

_ (tick tick tick goes the unstoppable clock) _

_ (and you choke on hesitation) _

~~~

He doesn't know when his feet began to touch the ground. Only that he felt cold cement on his toes, and the chill shot up his legs like lightning. He retracted his feet, setting them on the chair. He was sitting much like a frog, scrunched up and looking down. Shivering.

He was certain he would be met with cement floor, but was greeted by something else instead. A pair of shoes. A bit too large, if he was correct, and a pair of folded socks on top of them. 

He stared at the items for a long time. 

The shoes didn't stare back, but something else did.

~~"Put me on."~~ The shoes didn't say.

He leaned down and grabbed the socks, sliding them over his feet. They brought no warmth. He puts the shoes on next, and the lack of warmth they bring feels like a puzzle piece sliding into place. 

He ties the laces and sets his feet back down.

Where before only his toes touched the ground, his heels were now firmly planted. 

He felt _stretched._

~~~

He was just tired. Tired of the routine, the same song and dance. Before, in the times monster didn't roam the earth, men would complain about their jobs being routine. Other men would want routine, their lives too hectic, searching for any kind of stability.

If, by some random miracle he ever met those men sane and in front of him, he'd likely strangle them. _They_ didn't know what routine was. _He_ is routine, he _defines_ it, the Tower, the Signal, the Viewers, all of it, that is routine. 

And he was just so tired.

Time outside the Tower moved freely, he knew. Things had consequences, outside. Outside the Pale City, outside the Signal. 

But even if time moved as it should elsewhere, that didn't mean it was an escape from the routine. The Maw, for example, followed the routine. Just differently than the Signal did. He just never got to see the newer iterations of the Maw, trapped as he was.

Would it be better? To be trapped in a routine with consequences? Or be trapped in the routine with none?

It didn’t matter. 

Not for him.

~~~

**_The choices they make will always be the same._ **

**_They do not see the future as you do._ **

**_They are not variables; they are constants._ **


	4. Something New

_ (you are the variable that needs changing) _

_ (you are the pawn)  _

_ (you are the doomed king) _

_ (you are not tied)  _

_ (not yet) _

~~~

Mono sat on a small chair in a big room, and cried. He cried because he was just a boy. Just a little boy, trapped, alone, and so, so scared. 

The future loomed in front of him, and memories that shouldn't belong to him but did anyway were sliding into his mind unbidden. 

The world had always loomed around him. He was a rat in a house full of traps, and he knew it for a very long time. Every child did. It was etched into his bones; _he did not belong._

But this- _this._ This made everything before seem miniscule in comparison to him. Because- because _he_ was the mousetrap, now. He was the hand holding the puppet strings, he was the monster other monsters feared. He was the biggest fish.

And yet, in this room, he had never felt smaller than he did then. 

So he cried, because nothing would attack him for being too loud in his sobbing, because nothing would attack him ever again. 

Because really, the only person who could hurt him was himself. 

~~~

The children knew nothing of this nightmare. They never did, they never could. That was not how the story went. They would repeat the same actions they always did, every murder and every breath identical. 

He'd long since stopped blaming the children. It was never their fault. And by extension, it was never his fault, either. No control, no knowledge, no blame. It didn't matter if the things he did back then could have made a difference. He couldn't have _known_ back then.

It didn't matter why Six betrayed him, it didn't matter if it was from malice or fear or mistake. She was a child. Maybe monstrous, maybe traumatized, but he wasn't in any position to judge.

He looked down at his hands. Gnarled, warped, long. 

He had spent so long in a nightmare. Turning into a monster. 

And yes, it was her fault. 

But he was so, so tired. 

Of being angry.

Of being lonely.

Of being a tragedy.

Of this routine.

It didn't matter why she dropped him, in the end.

Because he forgave her.

~~~

**_Six chooses violence, Mono becomes the Thin Man, the Thin Man chooses something new._ **


	5. The Passage of Time is Subjective

_(Time is linear until it's not. Time moves forward until it's stopped)_

_(Time is a line. It is the line between fantasy and reality)_

_(The line between fantasy and reality has been blurred for a long, long time)_

~~~

It was an eternity between when he closed his eyes, and opened them. He was not surprised when a hat was at his feet. 

He made no move to pick it up. It made no move to appear on his head. 

He stared at it, devoid of emotion. 

It was only a matter of time.

And there, in his infinite, claustrophobic prison, time did not exist.

Perhaps nothing did. Not the hat, nor the chair, nor himself. Just a fever dream thought up by some dying, rasping thing on the edge of it all.

He leaned down, and with one hand, picked up the hat. He set it on his head, and it sunk down his scalp on its own. Another puzzle piece.

The final puzzle piece, he supposed.

He did not feel complete. Not at all.

But now, at least, he looked the part.

~~~

Something in his chest, knotted and wretched, uncurled and softened. A peace he had either never known or didn't remember washed over him. 

He was given a moment, just a moment and nothing more, of pure contentment. Then, something else filled him so completely that his very being ached. It made him want to stretch his limbs, run and jump and _scream._ An urge to _live_ so strong it wiped away anything else in his soul.

Forgiveness, apparently, was one hell of a drug. 

He dug his hands into the fabric of his pants. The Tower around him shifted endlessly, and perhaps it sensed an incoming mood from the Thin Man.

He stood, and began to walk. The walls of his prison parted, a brief glimpse of the Tower's flesh could be seen before it settled back to being an innocuous building.

Something was coiled in his veins. What? He couldn't tell. But it was hot, and energized, and made him feel _alive._ His core felt warm for the first time since he was small. Something was _writhing_ in his body and he was eager to let it out.

Was it rage? No, it couldn't be. _Love?_ Unlikely. What? What? _Fire?_

It felt like _fire._

He snapped his fingers and a static screen appeared in front of him. He stared. The loop had not yet begun. It was already over.

Six was on the maw.

There was time.

The fire inside him reacted like it had been doused with _gasoline._

The walls creaked. The floorboards groaned. The pictures began to melt and the many eyes of the Tower began to blink open to stare at a very, _very_ unstable cog.

He ground his teeth. He grabbed the screen, and gripped it so tight it shattered.

The pieces fell to his feet.

He stared at them for a long while.

And to anyone else, the shattered remains would be nothing but a mess, but to him, it was an idea. 

_What else could he break?_

~~~

Children were not responsible. And as such, they could not be relied on. This might seem harsh, and in many situations this wouldn't be the case, but in the situation he was in, this was fact. Children would not, _could not,_ stop this madness. He knew it as a simple, unavoidable truth.

But he was no child.

Not anymore.

The Tower screamed. In rage, in pain, all its wrath focused on one man. The tower thrashed inside itself, breaking, remaking, splitting apart and bleeding from bones and sockets alike.

His hand was on the main door of the Tower, the entrance, his exit. His head bowed, and sweat dripped down his temples. He ignored the Tower. He focused on the door. Everything he had, everything he _was,_ was channeled through his arm and into the lock. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered. 

For a moment, all there was in the universe was himself, and a door.

With all his being, he said:

_**"Open."** _

And the door, cut off from the rest of its body, _obeyed._

Tendons and muscles tried in vain to keep a man prisoner, but snapped and tore despite the effort. The door opened, slowly, blood and ooze dripping from the seams. 

He stepped through the gate, and the Tower wailed behind him. It was a haunting, mechanical sound.

Walking into the rain was like walking out of jail.

Which, he considered, was a very apt description.

Setting a steady pace, he left the tower. He would not be going back. Not now, not later, not in any way, shape, or form.

He walked away, and without its host, the Tower began to _rot._

He could go where he wanted. When he wanted, and for how long. It was, for him, the most freedom he had ever had.

He didn’t have anywhere to go. 

Well, he did, just not immediately. 

So, he walked. Until the Pale City was far behind him, until the rain stopped and he stood in fields of long dead grass. The sun shone, but its light was dull somehow.

He was at a… contradiction, of sorts. 

On the one hand, the loop hadn’t started. His past self hadn’t met Six, he did not wake in front of a television in the woods. On the other hand, the loop had already ended. He’d already been betrayed, Six had gone off. That was the problem, he supposed. He was before and after, in a time where things were settled and just waiting to be stirred.

He existed in a time where only one version of himself existed.

He didn’t know what would happen now that he left the Tower. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was it; the cycle was broken. He’d never had a reason to mistrust his instinct before. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be wrong, either. 

Anything could change.

He stared up at the sky. The clouds were thin and wispy, grey and faded. Still, they rolled their way across the heavens, patient and ever changing. 

She went to the Maw. The Pale City, the Tower, that was his story. He was the hub the fabric of time spun around, and she was simply a passing observer.

But in _her_ story, it was different. He was a stepping stone. On a path to what? Well.

She went to the Maw. And while he didn’t know exactly why, he had a pretty good guess.

Perhaps it was time he gave an old friend a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, folks. At the end. This chapter actually was rewritten five separate times, and originally had a part where our boy goes to actually visit six at the maw. But I think I'm going to have a follow-up fic for that, so I didn't feel it necessary to have it here. Not to mention I felt it muddled the final note I was trying to leave on, asdfgfdsadf.   
> I'd like to thank the people who wrote comments, they really made my day and made me very happy.   
> I hoped you enjoyed :)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is sitting complete in my docs, I'm just pacing myself when I post so I don't overlook too many typos.


End file.
